Ernest Manning

Ernest Charles Manning, (September 20, 1908 – February 19, 1996) was a Canadian politician and the eighth premier of Alberta between 1943 and 1968 for the Social Credit Party of Alberta. He served longer than any other premier in the province's history and was the second longest-serving provincial premier in Canadian history (after George Henry Murray of Nova Scotia). Manning's 25 consecutive years as premier were defined by strong social conservatism and fiscal conservatism. He was also the only member of the Social Credit Party of Canada to sit in the Senate and, with the party shut out of the House of Commons in 1980, was its last representative in Parliament when he retired from the Senate in 1983. Manning's son, Preston Manning, was the founder and leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a right-wing populist party based on Western Canadian conservative values. He served as the leader of the Official Opposition from 1997 to 2000. Early life and career Manning was born in Carnduff, Saskatchewan, in 1908 to George Henry Manning (1872–1956) and Elizabeth Mara Dixon (1870–1949). George had immigrated from England in 1900 and was followed by his fiancé in 1903. Their Carnduff homestead being inadequate, they moved to a new one in Rosetown, Saskatchewan, in 1909. In his childhood, Ernest was not especially religious and only occasionally attended a Methodist church in town.